Spotlight on L.A. Grows
The number of investment bankers attempting to corner deals in the growing Southern California marketplace continues to increase as San Francisco-based NationsBanc Montgomery Securities has quietly opened its first L.A. office.
Todd Jadwin is managing director of the Westside office, which opened in May. The office has three bankers and several analysts focusing on the communications, media and telecommunications industries.
Jadwin spent more than two years with Everen Securities, heading the consumer group in Los Angeles, and about seven years with Bear Stearns in Los Angeles, where as a vice president he focused on media and entertainment.
Matthew Pigeon and Christopher Wilson are vice presidents in the new office.
When hired by NationsBanc earlier this year, Jadwin discussed moving to New York, but later the firm agreed that opening a Los Angeles office might be more mutually beneficial.
“I just feel that L.A. is a vibrant, growing community--this is one of the biggest economies in the world,” said Jadwin, 35. “For media, this is where we wanted to be. We are going to continue to grow and will be looking at other sectors.”
Deals in the works include the coming initial public offering by CitySearch Inc., a Pasadena company that provides city guides on the Internet. The office has also done work for Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft who recently agreed to spend about $4.5 billion to acquire cable company Charter Communications.
“I need an office in Los Angeles--it’s a large focus given the media presence there,” said Michael Yagemann, co-head of the media and telecommunications group for NationsBanc Montgomery in New York, who was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. He is a former partner at Irell & Manella in Century City and was a banker at Bear Stearns in Los Angeles.
Does this mean Montgomery’s San Francisco-based competitors, Hambrecht & Quist and BancAmerica Robertson Stephens, could follow suit by opening Los Angeles offices?
Carole Newman, a spokeswoman for Hambrecht & Quist, said the firm has retail brokers in Newport Beach but no corporate finance in the Southland.
Nor does BancAmerica Robertson Stephens, in the process of being acquired by BankBoston, have a Los Angeles office. “Our bankers are there a lot, but no one is based there,” said Cheryl Popp, spokeswoman for Robertson Stephens. “It’s kind of what BankBoston’s plans are, not ours.”
A spokesman for BankBoston could not be reached for comment.
In other investment banking changes, Jefferies & Co., the largest investment bank based in Los Angeles, is committing significant resources to expanding its recapitalization and restructuring group, in existence since 1990.
The group will be led by a new team: Managing Director Richard Nevins and Senior Vice Presidents William Derrough and Thane Carlston.
“Having assembled this team . . . we are poised to grow our restructuring and refinancing practice into one of the largest and most active on Wall Street,” Chairman and Chief Executive Frank Baxter said. “It is our belief that companies in distress have more in common with each other than with their industry peers; thus, we have put in place a dedicated team working across industry boundaries.”
Times staff writer Debora Vrana can be reached via e-mail at debora.vrana@latimes.com.
